


The Once and Future Avengers

by bestdamnavocadoes



Series: The Secret of Natasha Romanov's White Hair [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestdamnavocadoes/pseuds/bestdamnavocadoes
Summary: Natasha confronts the Winter Soldier and the Avengers decide what to do with the Infinity Stones. Part 2 of The Secret of Natasha Romanov's White Hair.





	The Once and Future Avengers

Natasha finds the Winter Soldier staring out of a window. Ostensibly he's looking out at the Wakandan forest, rich with foliage and exotic flowers. But Natasha knows the thousand-yard stare all too well from the time she's spent with Steve Rogers. She knows that glazed over, haggard look. He isn't seeing the golden beams of the rising sun cutting through plumes of mist and the lush jungle canopy. He's stuck in his own mind, replaying his failures or the death of a beloved comrade. Wishing he had it back to do all over again, to set it right. And she can't say that she's never done the same. 

He must know that she's standing there behind him. His senses are far too acute for him to miss her sudden arrival. But he doesn't say anything, and the silence stretches between them as thick as molasses. All Natasha wants to do is scream at him. Her thoughts rush through her mind wildly, one after another:  _Why did you kidnap me as a child from that train platform? You could have at least tried to help me escape! You knew what demons you were delivering to, and you knew what they would do to me. I know you did your best to try to protect me after that, but you ... you and me.... we were..._

It's there, just at the edges of her memories, like paper tearing off a gift on Christmas morning. She can almost glimpse it. Something about him...

Suddenly images assault her mind: Barnes's face, so serious like it is now, seen through an observation window. Men in white coats around her, the hideous beeping of a machine, and pain, white hot searing pain --

She gasps, and he turns and looks at her, worry creasing his features.

She won't have that. Above all, she won't let anyone pity her. "Your hair is getting a little bit out of control."

His worry disappears back into a frown again, and she breathes an internal sigh of relief. "I admit that it hasn't exactly been my first priority," comes his sardonic reply. 

His dry, biting humor reminds her so very much of Steve that she almost wants to cry.

He sighs, releasing one long breath, and goes back to his vacant staring contest with the window. She wants to poke fun at him again, but she settles for a simple statement: "You had to know that this moment was coming."

"I wasn't sure what you remembered." He still isn't looking at her, no matter how intently she stares at him. He just continues to gaze into nothing, glassy and unfocused and so far away.

 _We're all such damaged people_ , she thinks to herself. _The walking wounded._ Unbidden words whisper from her mouth: "Where do we go from here?" 

Barnes laughs and it's raspy and harsh, dragged out of him almost like a cough. "That would be the million dollar question."

She looks over at him, his profile lit up suddenly by the sunlight now streaming through the observation deck. "Were we lovers?"

His eyes snap shut as abruptly as if she had slapped him across the face. "Yes."

A long silence stretches again. Natasha knows that she should just walk away from all these questions about her past. The rational thing to do would be to turn around, walk straight out of the Wakandan Embassy, hop a plane to the monastery, pick up Ian, and take him as far away from this crazy life as she possibly can. She knows that she could disappear into a civilian life quite easily. She could buy a minivan and a home in the suburbs, and live out her days in peace and quiet. But something unresolved is lingering in the air, and all she knows right now is that she can't turn her back on it.  

Barnes's eyes flutter back open, and as he looks over at her his expression slides back under the Winter Soldier mask, going somewhere unreachable. She's gripped with the sudden conviction that she has to do something now, something sudden, something shocking...

Without thinking, she walks around him until she's facing him, cutting off his view of the window and the scenery outside. She grabs his right wrist, the human one, flesh against flesh. His eyes widen in surprise, the humanity returning in a rush. "Were you ever going to say anything?" she demands. She feels her grip tightening on him, and he looks down at his wrist in shock.

Too late she realizes her mistake, and she lets go as if she's been burned, stepping back so quickly that she almost trips over her own feet.

"It's true then," Barnes says in a hushed voice. His voice is nothing more than a whisper, but Natasha's now superhuman hearing has no trouble picking out every sylalble.

Her heart is hammering in her chest. How stupid could she be? How foolish! She fights the urge to run, tries to control her panicked breathing. Barnes seems shocked, but based on his statement, it seems like he's heard something about her. Maybe when she was fighting Thanos she gave too much away. Maybe she moved too quickly, lifted something much too heavy...

"What are you talking about?" she says, trying to feign nonchalance. 

But the Winter Soldier has unfortunately known her since she was immature and inexperienced, and he won't be fooled by any act she can put on. And this definitely isn't her best one. She feels heat creeping up in her face, suddenly feeling like the young girl who had once been this man's protege. 

She wants desperately to slap him, and she can see in his eyes that he knows it. And for some stupid reason he's smiling at her, almost as if he's challenging her to do it.

It's been three minutes, and yet they're both acting like it's ten or fifteen years ago. 

He reaches out for her, and she responds without thinking, blocking his grab and shoving him backwards. He skids back a foot or two, perfectly calm and balanced.

"That is what I meant, my darling Natasha," he responds. The words come out in fluid Russian, almost as if pulled from his subconscious. And then he smiles, showing his teeth like he's the big bad wolf and she's a little girl from a fairy tale: "Such strength you have these days."

"I'm not your darling anything anymore," she grinds out through her teeth in English, trying to remind him of where they are. This isn't the past, and she owes him nothing now.

"No," he says, switching back to English, "no you aren't." 

She takes a deep breath, trying to center herself. Suddenly a door on the far end of the observation deck slides open, and Natasha isn't sure if she's relieved or not that it's only Sam and not Steve. 

As he walks towards them, Sam's gaze slowly travels between them as if trying to figure out what's going on. Barnes's face has slid once again behind the stoic mask of the Winter Soldier, but she can feel her face is still hot and red. She used to be so good at hiding behind her mask, but lately everything in her is boiling over and spilling out onto the floor like a hot mess. Some secret agent she is if everyone knows her secret now. 

"You weren't answering your phone," Sam says to Barnes. His gaze travels back to Natasha again, and she tries to compose herself. "There's a briefing meeting in twenty in the northwest conference room." A pause. "For everyone. You know, if y'all don't have other things to do."

"We're done here," Natasha says definitively.

She misses Sam, and his kind smiles and their friendship, but she has to get away from Barnes. No matter what memories the man might be able to help her unlock, no matter what truth he could help her sort out about her past, it's clearly too dangerous to get close to him. The more questions he asks, the more he would uncover.

And eventually, his questions could lead him to Ian. That's the sort of risk she just can't take.

\---

She stops by a bathroom to splash water on her face before the briefing meeting, trying to put aside her confused feelings. By the time she makes it to the conference room, it's pretty much full. Although "full" doesn't mean as much as it should these days. Stark is there, hunkered over a Starkpad with Bruce, whispering in hushed tones. That doesn't look very promising, she thinks with a wince.

Steve is standing next to Thor, his hand on his arm, speaking in low comforting tones. She isn't sure what their conversation is about, but she can guess: Loki. Natasha had obviously never been a big fan of his, given what he did to Clint and New York in general, but she can't help feel a pang of sadness for him when looking at Thor. He was in good hands though. If anyone knew what it was to lose someone like that, it was Steve.

Sam Wilson is leaning against a wall, laughing and talking to Scott Lang. A strange pair at first, they seemed to have developed a good rapport over time. Barnes is standing near them, and she hastily averts her gaze, heading for the seat Clint has saved for her.

"Not many of us left," Clint says, and she nods in agreement.

Peter Parker was sent home by Stark at the earliest opportunity. Vision and Wanda are still in the wind, and...

The door slides open and Stephen Strange glides in followed by T'Challa.

The room is suddenly silent as if he's sucked all the sound away. _Maybe he has,_ Natasha thinks to herself with a shudder. She's grateful to him for how he's helped her, but the extent of his powers still gives her the creeps. 

"I trust we're ready, Mister Stark," he says, his cape fluttering around him as he walks.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Stark replies sourly.

_Speaking of people who look like they haven't slept in a week...._

"So just what is the plan here?" Steve asks. He seems so sure of himself now, all square shoulders and determined chin. Not that he hadn't been like that before, but there's no doubting that a man is standing here now, all traces of innocent boyhood wiped away. It makes Natasha suddenly sad, longing for a hint of the old Steve she once felt she knew so well...

Her eyes slide away from his and suddenly she is locking eyes with Barnes, whose face is half hidden by his hair. There's a depth of understanding and empathy in those eyes, and she tears her gaze away from him. She's not sure what's wrong with her, and why she keep can't her thoughts away from dangerous waters. Barnes and Rogers are both part of her past, and she's put all of that behind her. Her only concern now should be protecting Ian, and providing him with a normal life.

"The Infinity Stones will be split up, and each will go to a different destination," Stark explains, summoning up a hologram of the Infinity Stones and the Gauntlet with a waved hand. Another wave of Stark's hand and the Infinity Stones fly out, tracing their way to several different destinations.

Steve frowns: "And who decides what Infinity Stones will go where?"

"We all will," T'Challa cuts in. "In small groups, we will all decide the final destination of each of these six Infinity Stones. We will work independently, so no one will know the destination of the others. And we will all assign a guardian..." he pauses. "Or perhaps several guardians, for their resting places."

"What do you mean by a guardian?" Clint asks.

"Someone to go with them," Bruce interjects. 

"So nothing happens to them," Stark finishes Bruce's sentence. The two of them look at each other, and Stark shrugs. "Theoretically."

"The guardian will either remain behind or be otherwise responsible for the Stone," Thor says. His voice comes out rough, and he coughs to clear his throat. "Through measures of technology or sorcery. They will be responsible and their heirs after them."

Based on Thor's stricken expression, he was planning on taking one of the Stones himself. Probably the Tesseract, in memory of Loki's final act of defiance.

"And what of the Gauntlet itself?" Natasha asks.

"The Gauntlet will be sent to the Nova Corps," Thor says, with only a slight grimace to betray his true feelings. "After the help we received from the..." he stumbles a bit over the words, "the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' we promised that we would involve them with the final fate of the Infinity Stones and the Gauntlet."

There's a collective groan from a few people in the room. Steve frowns at Thor: "Do you really think we can trust them?"

"As much as we can trust anyone these days," Thor replies. "I believe Peter Quill and Gamorra to be beings of honor and sincerity, if nothing else."

"This is the best option we have," Strange interjects, his eyes coldly falling on each of them in turn as if assessing them. "To be quite frank, it is our only option. Be wise in your choices, it is not an exaggeration to say that what we do here today will shape the future for generations to come."

\---

 Six Infinity Stones and Nine Avengers. It sounds like the plot to a B movie, or a bad remake of the Lord of the Rings movies. All Natasha knows is that she wants to go home. She wants to see Ian again... she wants...

"Natasha Romanov." 

She shuts her eyes against the sound of Strange's voice. Her small group of herself and Clint along with Thor have already decided that Thor will be the one to take the Tesseract with him to New Asgardia, the location of which is only reachable via interdimensional time travel. After what happened with Hela and then Thanos, Thor is taking no risks with what remains of his people. 

That's part of why Natasha urged Clint to team up with Thor. She knew he would take on the burden, she knew...

"Yes," Natasha replies, trying to keep her voice calm and her breathing even. When she turns, he's looming in front of her, although she didn't hear him move. Barnes is standing in his shadow, the expression on his face carefully hidden under the icy mask of his Winter Soldier persona. 

"Ms. Romanov, I am well aware of your... circumstances. However I have a favor I have to ask of you."

A sick feeling creeps into Natasha's stomach, a feeling like she is falling from a great height, waiting to hit the ground. 

"It is a mission I feel only you can achieve." A pause. "Well, you and one other."

And there it is: Splat, on the ground.

She should refuse him. She should march away and never come back to this world of mayhem and madness... But she could never forgive herself if an Infinity Stone fell into the wrong hands, not after what's been sacrificed already. So she grits her teeth and prepares to accept her duty, just as she always has.

"I hope you know this means you'll owe me a favor."

"Of course, Ms. Romanov. Now let me show you where you're headed."

"Not without me."

Strange isn't the type of man to groan out loud, probably because he thinks he's too dignified and classy for it. But the expression on his face is nevertheless one of intense displeasure.

"Steven Rogers," he says, turning from Natasha back to Barnes and Rogers, who has now planted himself next to his friend like an oak tree. Natasha knows the look on his face. Come hell or high water, Steve Rogers is not moving. "I believe you are needed elsewhere."

"Like hell I am," Steve shoots back.

Stark's face in the background is one of astonishment, and Natasha wonders if he's fighting the urge to yell out 'Language.'

Steve glowers at Strange, who glares back at him just as effectively. "Where I'm needed," Steve continues, "is next to Bucky. Wherever it is you're planning on sending him, you better plan on sending me."  
  
Barnes laughs, "I can take care of myself pal."

Natasha blinks, the strange Brooklyn affectation in his voice taking her by surprise. She can't help but wonder if Barnes truly remembers his life before, or if he just pretends he does.

"Well then you can look after me on the trip I'm taking with Natasha." Steve looks over at Natasha, his gaze piercing through her. His eyes are always so clear and direct, and the look in them right now sends shivers down her spine that are not entirely unpleasant. He raises an eyebrow at her as the silence lingers too long, and she realizes he's waiting for her to take the lead.

She coughs awkwardly. "Rogers will be integral to the success of our mission. I'm glad to have him along." She hears herself saying the words as if from a distance, as if she's having an out-of-body experience and someone else is talking. She very distinctly tries to not look at Clint, who is making a cutting motion across his throat, urging her to reconsider this potentially disastrous decision. The only trouble is, Natasha already knows that this decision - this mission - will be an utter disaster.   
  
But when Steve Rogers makes his mind up, she knows better than to argue. From this point forward, she just has to figure out how to survive the fallout.


End file.
